Vegan lemon and camomile drizzle cake

My friends Ellie and Ruadhan are getting married in June on the tiny island of Sark, and I’m honoured that they’ve asked me to make their wedding cake!  Ellie is vegan so I wanted to make sure that at least one tier is a vegan cake.  I tested this recipe when I went for a picnic and walk in the Forest of Dean with Ellie and Ru this weekend.  You’d never know it was vegan!  But it definitely needs the drizzle – without it I think it might be a little too dry.

Nectarine and blueberry upside down cake with orange, Greek yoghurt and almonds

I've been having baking withdrawals since our house flooded a few weeks ago. It's been depressing enough as it is to have had to cope without electricity, heating and hot water for a week, plus the seemingly-endless rigmarole of insurance companies and loss adjustors and asbestos tests before dehumidifiers can be installed, and we're still a long way off getting things repaired and back to normal.  But to be without baking has has been one of the worst bits! So when our friend Kirsty came over last night I decided to make a cake despite the chaos of spotlights dangling from their wires overhead. I made a cake batter with some grated orange, ground almonds and Greek yoghurt, folded in a couple of handfuls of blueberries, and poured it over a couple of nectarines sliced and arranged in the bottom of a cake tin. We ate it warm when it was more like a steamed pudding, but today now it's completely cool it's happily solidified into a lovely moist cake consistency.  Served with a great big dollop of Greek yoghurt with honey, the chaos of the flood-damaged kitchen seems to melt away into the background!